1979 Pontiac Trans Am WS6 (Hells Bandit)

About

I bought this car from a friend of mine about 8 years ago. It was a 1 owner when he got it. He's a used car dealer and has many pet project cars. We used to race turbo Buicks together. He still has 3 of them for his personal collection. The first is a race car only and gets the most attention. Anyway he had this 79 TA sitting over in a corner of 1 of his storage buildings. It was on jack stands and had the clutch out of it. It had been there about 5 years. I finally wore him down to sell it to me. It was just gonna rot there before he ever got to it. I bought it as is and got a new clutch, battery & gas. Fixed it myself and drove it home. It was rough. It needed all new exhaust and quite a few other odds and ends. It has been, and still is, a continuing work in progress.

Specs

1979 Pontiac Trans Am WS6 4 wheel disc car.
It currently has a .30 over 455 Pontiac engine which is actually 462 cubic inches. It has KB forged pistons, forged Eagle rods, orig 74 crank turned .10-.10. It is a 11-1 compression engine. There are Kauffman alum d-port heads cnced to 315 cfm, a custom ground, Kauffman speced hyd/roller cam. A Prof Prods alum Hurricane intake. NOS Cheater nitrous system with purge out from rear of shaker and bottle heater with bottle mounted between the rear seats. It easier to reach it to open that way. It currently has 200 hp jets in the kit. There is a 850 Holley double pumper carb with .50 cc accel pumps on both bowls. There is a Holley Blue elec fuel pump and Holley fuel pressure regulators for both nitrous and carb. The Hurst line lock and nitrous switch is in the Hurst sidewinder knob.. A Richmond Super Street 5 speed with overdrive with a Long shifter and a Centerforce dual friction clutch assembly. Rear gears are 3:23's. A Pro Comp hi-output hei distributor is used.Power is supplied by a Optima red top battery. One of Larry Navarro's WFO dropbase air cleaner assembly for Holley carb and keeping shaker functional. There are 30 year-old Hooker Chrome sidemount headers with 4" sidepipes for exhaust. I was lucky to find these at a guys basement up north and they were new in box. It has a Modine 4 core rad with factory clutch fan and 12" elec auxiallary fan. Auto Meter Tach and nitrous pressure, fuel pressure, oil pressure and temp are used. Car is a 11 sec motor, 10 sec spray 1/4 miler. Good old-fashioned heavy duty Lakewood traction bars are used for 1.5 to 1.7 60 foots with a set of MT Drag Radials.

Factory Options

Mods

Wheels are Centerline Warrior's at 15 X 8 fronts and 15 X 9 rears mount BF Goodrich Radial TA tires are 235-60-15 up front and massive 295-50-15 rears. There is a custom JVC sound system that has a provision for my IPOD and 200 watts power going to 6 X 9 rear speakers. Head unit has a removable front face and opens for CD loading.